The Wildman (22 page)

Another gust of wind slammed into the side of the building, and something that sounded like hail splattered against the roof. Jeff’s pulse was racing so fast it almost choked him as he turned back to the person—

It really is a person!

—
lying on the floor of the storage closet.

Jeff could see it was a man, even though his face was covered with sweat-streaked grime. His light-colored hair was matted in thick, greasy clumps against his forehead. A strip of duct tape covered his mouth, and his fear-widened, bloodshot eyes stared into the glare of the flashlight with utter hopelessness. Snot that glistened like slug trails ran from his nose across the strip of duct tape.

“
What the hell?” Jeff muttered as he stared in utter amazement at the man.

For a moment or two, he thought he was imagining this, but then the man blinked and made a muffled gagging sound behind the duct tape. When he jerked his legs, his feet made the same hollow thump Jeff had heard before.

“
Jesus Christ on a cross,” Jeff said.

Snapping to, he knelt down and, pinning his flashlight between his body and his arm, reached out to peel away the duct tape. It had been wrapped a few times around the man’s lower face. He uttered a pained grunt when Jeff pulled off a loop that also yanked out a clump of hair. He kept staring up at Jeff with pure terror lighting his eyes, and Jeff wondered if the man had gone insane. He realized the man had no idea who he was and must think he’d come here to hurt him or kill him.

“
Take it easy buddy,” he said softly. “I’m gonna— Ahh! Shit! Sorry ‘bout that.” Jeff knew he was causing the man pain as he removed the tape, but there was nothing he could do about that. “Just be another second or two.”

He gave the strip of tape one last quick tug, and the man’s mouth was free. His head fell backwards, clunking against the wall, and he inhaled with a raw, watery gasp that blended into a heart-wrenching sob.

“
Just hang on. Relax,” Jeff said as he placed a reassuring hand on the man’s shoulder.

The man flinched at his touch, shying away as if expecting Jeff to hit him. Once it was obvious Jeff didn’t intend to hurt him, the man visibly relaxed and let his breath out in a long, anguished sigh that shook his body. Tears glistened as they spilled from his eyes.

“
What the fuck’s going on here? Who are you?” Jeff asked as he stared in disbelief at the man. “How’d you get here?”

The man licked his lips before he tried to speak, but his throat made a funny rattling sound, and he doubled over in a fit of coughing. Before the coughing subsided, the man made a deep grunting noise as he stomach convulsed. Leaning forward, he puked onto his lap. The stench of sour vomit filled the closet, almost making Jeff throw up as well. He forced himself to ignore the stench as he pulled the man forward and started working to release the ropes binding his hands and feet.

“
Take your time,” Jeff said. “Just relax.” His fingers fumbled with the knots in the rope. “Shit! Wish I’d brought a knife.”

The man tried to say something again and ended up coughing.

“
I know. You need something to drink.”

Jeff glanced over his shoulder at the infirmary door again when it suddenly blew open. Outside, the rain running off the roof looked like silvery threads against the backdrop of the night.

“
A sip of rain water will do.”

The man stared at him wordlessly and then nodded eagerly, still looking like he’d lost his mind. His eyes glowed with a sparkling gleam that looked positively crazed.

“
Hold on,” Jeff said.

He stood up and rushed to the door and then, reaching outside, let the water running off the roof fill his cupped hands. Walking back carefully, he held his hands up to the man’s mouth so he could take a sip.

There wasn’t much water, but the man gulped greedily and then sighed as though he’d drunk ambrosia. He smacked his lips, which were cracked and peeling, and then the faint trace of a smile appeared.

“
There. That better?” Jeff asked.

The man stared at him and nodded. He looked as though he barely understood what Jeff was saying. Did he even know English?

Jeff went back to the door, filled his cupped hands again with water, and returned to give the man another small drink. It apparently did the trick because—for the first time—Jeff saw a tiny spark of rationality return to the man’s eyes.

Reaching behind the man again, Jeff continued to work to loosen the ropes. The bitter smell of feces and urine mixed with the fresher stench of vomit and made Jeff’s stomach lurch, but he held it down as he worked to free the man. It seemed to take forever, but—finally—the knots loosened, and the rope fell away in coils onto the floor.

“
So who the hell are you?” Jeff asked, sitting back on his heels. “How’d you end up out here?”

“
Evan—” the man said, but his voice cut off with an audible click, and he had to swallow and lick his lips before he could continue.

“
Evan did this to you?” Somehow, Jeff wasn’t surprised. So much for the innocence act.
“I
knew
it! That mother-fucker.”

Still barely able to speak, th
e man shook his head from side to side. When Jeff repositioned him so he could start working on the knots binding the man’s legs, he let out a low, pained groan that sounded like it might be the last sound he would ever make.

“
How long have you been here?” Jeff asked as he worked. It was obvious from the stench that the man had been in the closet for quite a while. The stench of raw sewerage hung in the air.

“…
Evan … Pike …” the man said in a voice that sounded like tearing paper. “Me … I’m … Evan … Pike.”

“
What the—?”

Jeff wasn’t sure he’d heard him correctly. He shined his flashlight into the man’s face. The man winced and shielded his eyes as Jeff stared at him.

“
Did you say …?”

The man nodded, still keeping his eyes averted to avoid the bright glare of the flashlight. Then he took a deep breath and repeated what he had said, this time more emphatically.

“
Yes.
I’m
Evan Pike.”

“But Evan is—” Jeff hitched his thumb in the general direction of the dining hall. “If you’re Evan, then who the hell is the guy who brought us out here?”

The man let out a long, shu
ddering moan as he shook his head from side to side. The motion made him wince. It was obvious it still hurt his throat to speak, and his voice was just barely above a raw whisper.

“
That’s Ben … Ben Foster”

“
Ben Foster? Who the fuck is Ben—”

A cold, creeping feeling slithered up Jeff’s back as what the man said slowly sank in. The rain splattering on the roof and the wind whistling through cracks in the building set his nerves on edge.

“
He’s Jimmy … Jimmy Foster’s … brother,” Evan said with great effort.

Unable or unwilling to believe this was really happening, Jeff narrowed his eyes and shook his head in denial. Bones in his neck made faint crackling sounds that he could barely hear above the wind and rain. He wished he could convince himself this was all a terribly elaborate nightmare … that he would wake up now and it would all be over, but what Evan said made sense. It confirmed the doubts and suspicions Jeff had been having all weekend.

“
Jimmy Foster’s brother,” Jeff repeated as the realization sank in deeper.

Evan nodded even though it was obvious the motion caused him great pain.

“
So how did he …? Whose idea was it to have us all come out here this weekend?”

A trace of a smile touched Evan’s lips as he lowered his head.

“
It was my idea,” he said softly. “I just never thought he would … do what he did.”

“
Why did he tie you up and hide you out here?”

“
Because he was through with me,” Evan said with a trace of sadness in his voice. “I was no longer useful to him.” He sounded somewhat better. “Once I got all of you out here, he was finished with me—”

Before he could say more, his voice choked off, and he leaned forward and started coughing again.

“
You want another drink?” Jeff asked, not knowing what else to do.

“
Please.”

“
I wish I had something to put it in.” Shining the flashlight around the infirmary, he looked around but didn’t expect to find anything useful. The place had been stripped clean long ago, so he went back to the open door and filled his cupped hands again so Evan could drink.

“
It’d be best not to drink too much at first,” he said as he poured the rainwater into Evan’s open mouth. He reminded him of a fledgling bird being fed by its mother.

“
How long have you been out here?”

Evan squinted and shook his head, looking confused.

“
I have no idea. What day is it?”

“
It’s Saturday … Saturday night,” Jeff said even though it felt as though he had been stuck on this island a lot longer.

“
Jesus … Saturday night.” Evan was still shaking his head from side to side. “That means he … I’ve been out here four days.”

“
Four days! Jesus Christ!”

“
I came out to the island on Wednesday to get things ready for the reunion. They delivered the Port-a-Potty, and I was hoping to get a generator hooked up and running so we’d have electricity.”

Jeff was still working to loosen the rope that bound Evan’s legs. There were a lot of knots, and they had been pulled tight, maybe from Evan’s efforts to free himself.

“
How’d he trick you into this?” Jeff asked. “I don’t get it. And why would he? What’s he after?”

Evan sniffed with dry laughter and looked at Jeff with glistening eyes.

“
Isn’t it obvious? He wants to kill us.”

“
Kill us?”

Jeff wished he could stop sounding like Evan’s echo, but this was too much to absorb.

“
He wants to kill everyone from Tent Twelve.”

“
But why would he—”

Before he could finish his question, Jeff already knew the answer.

“
Because of what happened to his brother,” Evan said.

His voice sounded so distant Jeff could easily imagine it was his own thoughts. The chill of the night suddenly cut deeper into him, freezing his bones with an icy touch.

“
He bla
mes
us?
” Jeff asked.

He closed his eyes for a moment and saw a mental image of Jimmy Foster the way he remembered him when he was twelve years old. Jimmy was smiling his big bucktoothed grim that w
rinkled his freckled cheeks and made his blue eyes gleam. But Jimmy’s grin instantly melted into a frightening scowl, and both sides of Jimmy’s mouth drooped down as if his face was made of melting wax. His lips peeled back, exposing wide, flat, white teeth that were clenched to hold back a scream. The light in his eyes was snuffed out, and for a terrifying timeless moment, Jeff could see that his friend was terrified as he stared into the bottomless depths of eternity.

“
He blames us for Jimmy’s death,” Jeff said, his voice so soft he could barely hear it above the sound of the wind outside.

“
He totally set me up,” Evan said weakly. “He set us all up.”

“
How do you know this?” Jeff asked, suddenly growing suspicious. He stopped working on the knots and sat back when a sudden paranoid thought came over him.

Maybe this is part of the plan, too.

How could he believe this was really Evan Pike?

Maybe it was some elaborate setup to torment Jeff and his other friends, to torture them with guilt about what had happened.

“
He told me, for Christ’s sake,” Evan said.

Looking at him, Jeff was convinced that no one would go to such extremes, sitting out here in their own shit, piss, and vomit in order to entrap someone. Thi
s
had
to be the real Evan, and he must be telling the truth.

“
He was convinced Mark did it,” Evan said.

“
Did what? You mean killed Jimmy?”

Evan winced as he nodded.

“
He’s convinced Mark killed his brother and threw him into the lake to make it look like he fell in and drowned.”

“
But that … that doesn’t make sense.” Jeff was still finding it all but impossible to process any of this.

“
Tell
him
that,” Evan said with a sinister chuckle. “He tracked Mark down and was planning on killing him, but then Mark died before he got to him.”

Jeff nodded numbly. “I know. Mark supposedly had a heart attack.”

“
Huh. I heard it was a drug overdose. That’s what Ben told me, anyway. The point is, Ben blamed Mark for his brother’s death.”

“
Yeah, but even if that’s true, what’s it got to do with any of us?”

Evan smiled thinly and sniffed with laughter.

“
He’s convinced we all knew about it, and none of us ever spoke up because we wanted to protect him.”

“
You mean Mark? You’ve got to be kidding me.”